Single use syringes are required to reduce the risk of infection caused by needle sharing. Many types of single use syringes are known.
One type of syringe that shoots the needle back into the syringe body is extremely complicated and has up to 16 parts that must be assembled to form the finished syringe. This known syringe is also restricted to volumes of larger than 3 ml as the various parts cannot be made to fit smaller syringes.
Another disadvantage with known syringes of this type is the inability to easily and readily injection mould the various components. For instance, a syringe having a shoot back needle is known where a spring biased needle is held in place by a rupturable restraining means which is moulded as part of the internal wall of the syringe barrel. In practice, it is found that such a barrel is extremely difficult to mould and is virtually impossible to injection mould. Thus, this type of syringe cannot be manufactured cheaply.
Another type of safety syringe having a spring-mounted needle that shoots back into the plunger stem has a needle held in place by a deformable base. The deformable base has a constricted passageway which grips a peculiarly designed needle that has inter alia a circular flange attached to it. The deformable member is pushed forward by the plunger and in doing so, it is pushed forwardly into an area of larger cross-section which allows the deformable member to expand which in turn allows the needle to pass through the passageway in the deformable member and to shoot back into the plunger stem. One disadvantage with this design is that a standard needle cannot be used.
Safety syringes having shoot back needles are also known where the needle is not biased by a spring. Instead, a vacuum is provided in the barrel to suck the needle back into the plunger stem. This type of syringe is of course fairly limited in use to circumstances where suction can be provided.
Another type of syringe that does not have a biased needle instead has a plunger stem provided with a helical spring such that the plunger stem is biased to retract. The plunger stem is pushed along the barrel and against the bias of the spring. When the front of the plunger stem strikes the rear of the needle, it locks against the needle. Release of the plunger stem will then cause the spring to pull the plunger stem back along the barrel thereby retracting the needle.
It is known to provide single use syringes where the needle is spring biased and is held in place by a cuttable member. In order to ensure that the member is properly cut thereby releasing the needle, a two-part cutting action is usually required. In the two-part cutting action, the plunger typically has a forward cutting edge and the front of the needle also has some form of cutting edge and a double cutting action is required to ensure that the cuttable member is property cut to release the needle. It is found that attempting to cut a cuttable member to release a spring-biased needle is not always reliable and does not always work.
Another type of known single use syringe has a base member that grips an enlargement on the needle. The plunger pushes the base member forwardly, which further compresses a spring that is around the needle. The pushing action releases the grip between the base member and the enlargement on the needle. This allows the needle containing the enlargement to be shot back into the plunger while leaving the spring behind. The spring is initially compressed partially but then becomes compressed fully as the plunger forces the base member forwardly. This arrangement requires a needle having a special design (containing an enlargement), which means that conventional needles cannot be used.
Another type of syringe has a plunger seal which moves on the plunger and where the plunger seal slides rearwardly along a bearing surface in response to a force being applied to the seal that is in excess of the operational force of the syringe. This arrangement begins the retraction sequence of the needle. With this arrangement, a specially designed plunger seal is required which moves relative to the plunger. Conventional plungers have a plunger seal that is fixed to the plunger.
Another type of syringe has a shoot back arrangement consisting of two parts which slide relative to each other to release the needle. The two parts consist of an outer part and an inner part. The inner part holds the needle and is biased by a helical spring. The two parts are held together by frictional engagement to each other. A plunger progressively pushes the outer part forwardly thereby progressively reducing the amount of frictional engagement between the outer part and the inner part until such time that the bias of the spring is sufficient to shoot the inner part away from frictional engagement with the outer part. This arrangement requires a sliding frictional grip to hold the two-part together which is considered quite risky and requires careful manufacture.
Another arrangement uses a needle holder having an elongate body portion in front and a head end in back and providing a spring under the head end that circumscribes the needle holder. The use of an elongate body in a needle holder makes this arrangement difficult for use in small and confined spaces.
Therefore, in summary, the known single use syringes all use some form of spring, and typically a helical spring to shoot back the needle. In each of these versions, the needle is biased to shoot back into the syringe body, and needs to be held in place to prevent this from occurring. However, there does not appear to be a version where the needle is not always biased, or is not biased at all during the injection cycle. The versions that use vacuum to suck back the needle have too many disadvantages to make them commercially versatile and acceptable.
Another disadvantage with many existing single use syringes, is that the mechanism required to shoot back the needle often has a portion protruding into the syringe barrel, and can result in incomplete expulsion of the liquid from the barrel and through the needle. In other words, many existing single use syringes have a “dead space” where the syringe fluid can collect and where the fluid will not be properly expelled from the syringe. This can result in incomplete or erroneous levels of fluid being injected into a person. The present invention may also include means to reduce “dead space” in the syringe barrel.
Another disadvantage with some of the spring biased shoot back needles, is that in practice, it is possible to reassemble the mechanism which means that the syringe and needle can be reused. Clearly, a single use syringe should be manufactured in such a manner that it would be impossible to reuse the syringe. Therefore, there would be an advantage in having some form of “destructive mechanism” which would render the syringe unable to be reused.
Another disadvantage with single use syringes, and perhaps also with other types of syringes that contain needles is the risk of needle stick when removing the cap that protects the needle. Typically, the cap has some form of releasable press fit arrangement, and the cap needs to be gripped by person's fingers and pulled off the syringe to expose the needle. Therefore, there would be an advantage in having some form of needle cap that could be removed in a safer manner to reduce the incidence of needle stick.